


Rumours of the Dance of Death

by HannahJane



Series: The Hand of the Goddess [3]
Category: Grimm
Genre: Fusion, Gen, Grimm - Freeform, Irish Mythology - Freeform, Not Canon Compliant, secondary character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 14:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannahJane/pseuds/HannahJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean Renard really has no idea what he's stepped into. For now, he's just going with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rumours of the Dance of Death

 

The day of Marie Kessler's funeral, Sean Renard attended the small service, in part to be supportive of Burkhardt and in part to ensure that Kessler was really dead and buried and no longer a threat. Nick spent a better part of the service staring at the grave and coffin, Juliette holding his hand, looking stunned and sad.

 

A typical Oregon afternoon, the sky was cloudy, the threat of rain in the air had become reality a few moments ago, the steady drip-drip of a shower covering them as Sean pulled the collar of his overcoat higher around his neck. The pastor was finishing up, reading from the Bible in his hands, his voice a steady drone over the small gathering. Griffin, Wu, and a few other officers from work had attended, but Sean wasn't even sure if Nick registered their presence.

 

A flash of something – maybe a branch shifting just so, a leaf whirling past – caught his eye and Sean turned to look. A pale blonde woman – slender, ethereal – stood by the nearby row of tombstones, the wind whipping her hair around her face. Even from a distance, he felt her gaze on him, burning and bright. She was dressed wrong for Oregon weather, barefoot and in a short white dress, but the chill in the air didn't seem to bother her. As he watched, she raised one hand and crooked a finger towards him, beckoning him. A name rose unbidden to the forefront of his mind and Sean knew who his mysterious visitor was, knew that she would wait for him to come to her.

 

"Amen," the pastor completed his speech and stepped back, drawing Sean's attention back to the service. It was short and over quickly, Nick clearly not wanting to draw it out any further. Sean paid his respects, clasped Nick's hand, told Juliette if they needed anything to call him, and then strode away, across the open grass to where the woman waited for him. The closer he got, the more he felt her in the back of his mind, whispers rushing through his veins.

 

"Do you have a death wish?" Sean stopped just a few feet away and blinked. Of all the things he has been expecting from the _dame blanche_ , a chiding hadn't even made the top hundred. The woman stared at him from eyes so pale they gave the impression that the dark of her pupil was the only color in them.

 

"Pardon?" he asked, struggling to remain polite. He was a _prince du sang_ , not a fucking child. A creature like the _dame blanche_ was beneath him. The woman settled into a very un-Creature like pose, hands going to her hips, obstinate look on her face.

 

"You heard me. Do you have a death wish, Prince?" Sean found himself unable to reply, still in shock at the casual treatment being afforded him by this spirit. She continued speaking as if she hadn't noticed his muteness.

 

"Killing a goddess's charge like that. Are you out of your mind? _Garcon stupide_." She muttered and Sean's ability to speak came back to him. The casual speech was bad enough, but no one called him a stupid boy and got away with it.

 

"You will do well to remember you who you are speaking to, _esprit_. I am _prince du sang_ of this territory and as such I will be addressed with respect." He growled, the tension from the last few weeks leaking out into his voice. To his surprise, the _dame blanche_ simply smiled, dropping her hands to her sides.

 

"Good, you have bravado. You'll need it." She lifted one pale delicate hand and flicked her wrist. Sean felt his head spin, felt the world tilt under his feet and when he opened his eyes again, a _dame blanche_ no longer stood before him. The woman was taller than before, her hair a mass of wild blonde curls that plunged to her waist, failing to cover the majority of her nakedness. Vividly blue eyes with pupils like a cat regarded him with interest from a face that now featured skin made of the faintest shimmering scales. Reality hit like a punch in the gut and without even looking around to see who was watching, Sean sank to one knee.

 

" _Divona_." He said, keeping his eyes on the grass before him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her bare feet, now glimmering ever so slightly. The goddess crouched before him and nudged his chin up with one finger. He stared into eyes that bore traces of amusement.

 

"Get up, little fox. You're getting your pretty suit all dirty." He rose stiffly, ignoring the muddy spot on his knee and firmly met her gaze. She smile, revealing faintly pointed incisors and reached out, collecting a raindrop from his cheek with the tip of her finger. She brought the finger to her mouth and licked it away with a playful flick of her tongue.

 

"I apologize for my earlier behavior, Divona." Sean said, feeling that maybe he should be kneeling again.

 

"It's not me you have to apologize too, prince." The goddess said, tilting her face up to the rain. Her presence made sense in a way, if one believed the stories from the old country. According to those stories, Divona was a goddess of water, charged with keeping the wells and rivers clean and safe. The Pacific Northwest was probably one big playground for her.

 

"Who?" his confusion filtered across his face, he could feel it in the furrowing of his eyebrows. She looked back at him, raindrops clinging to her eyelashes, trailing across the bare patches of skin that he could see through her long hair.

 

"Your family is not the only one with access to the Gods, Prince." One blue arm pointed in the direction of the gravesite that he'd just left. He half-turned, finding the site empty except for the pile of dirt that would be shoveled onto the grave later. At least he thought it was empty. Between one blink and the next, the graveside was suddenly occupied by a raven-haired girl, crouched by the pile of dirt. She couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen, her dark hair blending with the black t-shirt she wore. She stared into the hole before her, but from the distance, Sean couldn't see her expression. Her body language gave nothing away as to her emotional state. Then she rose, too gracefully to be human, and flipped her hair over her shoulders. To Sean's surprise, she strode across the grass towards them. He found himself stepping closer to Divona as the girl approached, but whether it was for protection or because he felt the need to protect her, he wasn't sure.

 

"Delivering him up on the proverbial silver platter, Divona?" the dark-haired girl called as she approached, her stride simultaneously sensual and determined. The blonde woman snorted, one arm reaching out to push Sean back. He let it happen, knowing this was a moment when he was truly in over his head.

 

"I don't answer to you, Crow-hag. Oh, I'm sorry. It's Morgan, right? That's what you're going by nowadays. Not many people praying to the war goddesses anymore. Unless you count praying that you'll go away." Divona's lightly accented English just somehow managed to make the insult seem all the worse. The dark haired girl stopped less than five feet away, soaked, but clearly not willing to let it ruin her day. Sean met the newcomer's eyes dead on and something throbbed in his chest at their brilliant green, glowing like they were lit from within by actual flames. A faint smirk turned up the corners of the girl's full mouth for a few moments.

 

"I don't know, Divona. Why don't you tell what its like to be a water goddess in the middle of global warming?" The tension that suddenly stiffened Divona's spine was of the angry variety.

 

"Give him to me." The girl – Morgan, apparently – said, her green eyes still fixed on Sean. He involuntarily took a step forward, realized that she was calling him somehow and took two steps back.

 

"He is not yours to punish, _Morrígan_." Divona spoke, her voice harsh. Sean glanced back towards the open grave and things began to make more sense.

 

"He killed one of mine. I cannot think of a better definition for "mine to punish"." Morgan said and they could have been speaking about the weather for all the emotion in her face.

 

"He ordered the death. He did not take part in the actual killing." Divona said, reaching one hand out and clutching Sean's arm, drawing him to her. Never had the Prince felt so helpless as the two goddesses argued over him. It was not a sensation he wanted to feel again soon.

 

"So?" The girl said, folding her arms across her chest. "You're telling me not to kill your little prince based on semantics? Grasping at straws, aren't we, river goddess?"

 

"She was a threat." For a moment, Sean wondered who had spoken. Then he realized that it had been him, his mouth operating separately from his brain. Morgan's gaze seemed to pin him to the spot where he stood behind the safety of Divona's arm, although really, if what they were saying was true, a river goddess was not going to be much of a match against a goddess of war.

 

"She was a threat and I eliminated that threat." He continued, stepping forward away from the safety of Divona and towards Morgan who had uncrossed her arms, letting them hang at her sides. He stepped forward until he was a few steps from the other goddess and looked down into her eyes, a little disconcerting considering that she was so much more powerful than he was.

 

"And you tell me this why?" She asked quietly, something – anger maybe – trying to work it's way onto her features. "Do you _want_ me to kill you?"

 

"As one warrior to another, I took care of a threat to my own people. A threat that had to be contained before any more damage could be done to the already delicate balance of my kingdom." Sean didn't know where this newfound courage was coming from, but he didn't question it. Not in front of a goddess who looked like her greatest pleasure would be to sink her hand into his chest and pull out his still beating heart. The expression from before flitted across her face, half-formed, but Sean recognized respect – no matter how begrudging – when he saw it.

 

"And her nephew. Is he a threat as well, _tywysog_?" she used the Welsh word for prince and along with clues from their conversation before, Sean was suddenly very aware of who he was speaking too. A sharp acidic taste coated the back of his tongue and he recognized fear in his bloodstream. The goddess before him smiled sharply as if she could smell it.

 

"You cannot kill him, Morgan!" Divona suddenly yelled, her voice as loud as a clap of thunder. The rain seemed to be coming down harder now as though the water goddess was urging it on.

 

"Answer me." Morgan ignored Divona, staring up into his face instead. Sean took a deep breath.

 

"No." he answered honestly. "The new Grimm is no threat to my kingdom." There was a moment's pause and then Morgan's hand shot out and clutched the front of his overcoat, wrenching him forward. His dress shoes slipped in the mud, but she held him up effortlessly.

 

"Swear it." Morgan whispered against his mouth and for a moment her face flickered and he saw the true goddess underneath, the golden skin, the eyes of green fire, the feathers. She kept her true form hidden where Divona openly displayed it, using her appearance as a threat while Morgan used actual threats. He understood why. One look at Morgan in her true form was enough to send a man screaming for the hills. Gently, he pulled back until her hands let go of his jacket and for the second time that day, Sean sank to one knee before a goddess.

 

"I swear before you, Mórrígan, Goddess of War, that no harm shall come from me to Nick Burkhardt. I hereby claim the Grimm under my protection as a _prince-du-sang_ of this region. He is mine to protect and mine alone. As long as he is in my kingdom, he shall be safe." Eloquent even though he made it up right there on the spot, Sean waited on bended knee for a reply. Morgan stared down at him, rain soaking her dark hair, plastering it to her head, making her black t-shirt and jeans cling to the curves of her body. To Sean's surprise, she sank to her knees in the mud in front of him, placing one hand on his cheek, the other over his heart. Finally, she spoke, glancing first at Divona then back at him.

 

"I hereby hold you to this pledge, _tywysog_ ; fellow Guardian of the Grimm, Sean Renard. He is forever under your protection and shall come to no harm from you." She leaned in, her grip on his face tightening, the hand over his heart half-forming into claws. "If harm comes to the Grimm from you or others affiliated with you, know this, I will destroy you and your entire bloodline, eradicate you from the surface of this world. Do we have an accord, _tywysog_?"

 

"We have an accord, _déesse_." Her lips curved into an almost-smile that faded back into the marble façade of her face. That rush of confidence from earlier bloomed again and he put a hand over the one pressed to his heart. She let it happen for almost a second before she batted it away and then in a rush of feather and wind that stung his face, forcing him to close his eyes, she was gone, leaving behind no indication that she had ever been there.

 

"You shouldn't have done that, Prince." He'd forgotten all about Divona, but now as he struggled back to his feet and turned to face her, he saw she had returned to the form of the _dame blanche_ , the thin white sundress she wore soaked completely through, offering up a first-hand look at what lay underneath. He sternly kept his gaze on her face.

 

"If it is simply because the two of you do not see eye to eye, I cannot-" Divona cut him off with a wave of her hand, an almost sad expression on her face.

 

"It is not for any reason that you can comprehend, _garcon_." She said, staring at the spot where Morgan had touched his chest. "She is death. It follows her, it worships her, and now it taints you as it taints her." Sean looked down at the front of his overcoat as if he could see whatever it was that Divona was so morose about, but he saw nothing.

 

"Because I gave her a vow that I would not kill the Grimm?" He was perplexed and that combined with the way the rain was slowly but surely soaking him was putting him in a dark mood. The double-talk of a water goddess was not helping matters any. Divona did not reply. Instead she gave him one last lingering look, her expression as blank as Morgan's had been and then a wall of water came down over them for the briefest of moments, hiding her from sight and as soon as the rain had returned to its normal rhythm, pattering down on him, she was gone.

 

Sean Renard stood alone in the middle of the cemetery, now soaked to the bone, the only evidence of his conversation with two goddesses, the muddy stains on both his pant legs. With a sigh, he turned and trudged across the now muddy grass towards the parking lot.

 

From the bare branches of a nearby tree, huddled against the trunk for protection against the weather, a midnight black crow watched him go, its green eyes flickering like fire.

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary of words: 
> 
> Dame Blanche- White Woman in French Mythology, a spirit 
> 
> Garcon stupide- stupid boy 
> 
> Esprit- Spirit 
> 
> Divona- Gaulish Goddess of a sacred spring 
> 
> Mórrígan- Irish Goddess of War 
> 
> Déesse- French word for goddess
> 
> **
> 
> The title comes from a poem by Charles Baudelaire called "The Dance of Death".


End file.
